Choosing A Domain Name
[private].[/private]Once you have settled on a rough framework, have decided the product you are going to sell and have a business model in mind, it may be a good time to choose a domain name.
This is getting much harder by the day with millions upon millions of sites out there, all competing for similar names and domain name registrars snapping up domain names for their own personal profit.
However, it’s still possible to find a quality domain name if you look hard enough, but before you attempt to do this, you should look over the following pointers.
1. What’s in a name?
The first and most important tip I can give you is that your domain name should, where possible, reflect what your web site is all about. For example, if your web site is about grooming a cat, the domain catgrooming.com would be ideal. This is purely from a search engine algorithm point of view, which today take into account domain names as part of their complex calculations.
2. The keywords factor
Again, solely down to search engine optimization, another consideration of great importance are your keywords. Try to select a domain name that contains your most relevant keyword phrase, as search engines are placing more and more relevance on them these days. To simplify, a keyword phrase is a few words that best describe your web page, so if we use the example above, your ideal keywords would be “cat grooming”.
Of course, in today’s climate, you’re unlikely to get the domain name you really want, and with so many domain names out there today it’s becoming increasingly difficult to do this, no matter how unique your idea is. With that in mind, we’ll give you a few clever ways to deal with this problem. After all, Google.com didn’t become as popular as it is by describing in detail what it actually does.
3. Catchy domain names do work!
If you’re having problems finding a domain name that reflects your product or your business, it may be time to get creative. If you’re unable to find anything similar to the aforementioned catgrooming.com, then an ideal substitute could be kittygroomers.com or an even more off the wall, takingcareofkitty.com. As ridiculous as it sounds, a memorable website name is a viable alternative to keyword based domain names. If you’re STILL having problems, the only alternative is to get really abstract and use a domain name such as Google (sorry, it’s taken) which emphasizes phonetics and is easily typed and catchy to boot.
4. Extensions DO matter!
Despite numerous available domain name extensions, i.e. .org, .biz, .info to name but a few, having a dot com extension will considerably boost your website’s image. Dot com was the extension that effectively started it all, and it’s the first thing on a user’s mind when they are typing a domain name into their browser.
5. Things to avoid
While adding numbers, dashes, underscores and abbreviations to your domain name may be an attractive proposition when you’re finding it hard to choose a domain name that’s available, it’s still something that should be avoided where possible. Word of mouth is an important aspect in web promotion, and phonetically telling someone that your website address is my1stbusiness.com is likely to result in many people typing myfirstbusiness.com into their browser. Similarly having to repeatedly spell out a domain name with dashes in it, i.e. my-first-business.com, is a nuisance and will likely result in lost traffic.
Abbreviations can work to some degree, but unless your website is well known like the BBC.com web portal, you’re still likely to lose traffic, so unless you can come up with a clever abbreviation such as CAT.com, or an abbreviation that may be memorable, this is another thing to avoid.
The final thing you should try to avoid where necessary is using long domain names. Having a domain name such as thegreatestwebsiteofalltime.com may sound catchy, but it’s surprising how many people will actually forget it. Before you know it, you’ll be having visitors going to greatestalltimesite.com and the like, and this is not ideal. Again, there are exceptions, and weallliveinayellowsubmarine.com may be easy to remember (it’s certainly not to type) but it then brings up another important consideration – trademarks.
Before you purchase your domain name, it may be wise to ensure that your domain name isn’t a trademark of another owner. By searching the Trademark Electronic Search System you could save yourself alot of heartache and more seriously, potentially the need to start your business again from scratch.
Summary
So now you have the general idea of what works and what doesn’t, it’s time to take the step and think up a suitable domain name. While doing this, try to come up with at least half a dozen suitable names for your business, because it’s highly possible you won’t get what you want first time around.
Choosing a domain name, especially if it’s your first, can be a fun and satisfying procedure and really makes you feel like you’re on the road to success. Hopefully, our guide above will make the process far less problematic and give you the headstart you desire.
Note: Should you wish to check if a domain name is available, there’s plenty of sites available that will allow you to do so. uWhois.com is such a site, or you can simply search for ‘domain name registrars’ using a search engine. Most reputable domain name registrars will have a WHOIS lookup tool on their website.
